I'm on my fourth month of living in what I am calling Freedom - land, California. I haven't heard a single word of gossip in three months. I feel like its the best beauty treatment out there. Better than botox! :P My vision is quite clear, thus my field of awareness is quite clear.

I have been thinking a lot about realization in the context of friendships. Sensing into when I used to have problems or issues (long gone are those days now), the type of people I would attract into my life. And then when I was happy and content, the type of people who would want to sit by me. It was rarely the same person who would want to do both.

Back in the human world, we are told those who stick by us in the worst of times are are 'true' friends. Yet sometimes, well mostly, it's just like they wanted to be miserable with company.

It seemed to shift somewhat in my realization. It seemed the more expansive I be-came, the less drama I had to share (the natural progression of realization), the less people were interested in sticking around. I even found in my human state I tried to create illusory problems, to dumb myself down, to fit in so I had something to bitch about at the table.

Most people will not be overjoyed when you tell them everything is Perfect...sometimes you have to go on with your life in its grand perfectly imperfection anyway.

I see now, the tension came from the shifting tides of consciousness, and melded into the big blue sea.

Now I don't see myself as a friend or foe. I simply AM. It is the other person who chooses to see me as a friend or a foe - yet that is dissolving so quickly it can no longer hold true. Isn't everything these days!

In fact, there are very few people I interact with now because I will not play the give/ receive game or the talk about other people instead of sharing your soul among many other forms of "friendship" games. And, surprisingly for this human extrovert, I love it.

In the human world, when I had friends I felt forced to keep them by actions that no longer feel natural in my realization. If I had foes, I felt I had to defend myself, to explain myself. And then, all of that becomes exhausting (energetically expensive) and you simply cannot play the role.

Now I am content to talk with the man on the park bench, connect without words to the people in my yoga class, exchange a hello and a smile with the clerk at the store.

When you fill yourself up from within, people flowing in and out of your life seems natural and expansive - there is nothing to grasp onto when it is all inside. I found the intensity that used to define relationships, especially friendships, was drug out with the low tide as the high tide of self-fulfillment flowed in.

When you don't jump in to join someone in their outrage, they will seek it elsewhere. When you don't dive into the drama of having to defend yourself, the person doing the accusing will find someone else to blame and fill themselves up with the conflict energy they seek. We've all done it. No shame. No blame.

You see it was never something you did, or even they did, but a pattern trapped in gravity playing itself out in the never-ending cycle - only changing who was playing what role.

What I found after the tension of the tide shift is: FREEDOM, yet I keep reminding myself not to forget the struggle in making the shift that now seems effortless.

Remembering a struggle that has long dissolved goes into the experience jar that allows the compassion to continue - a compassion so detached, it knows no separation.

Notes on letting go of the identity called friendship.....and the Magic of the ease and simplicity that is BEING....from my next book, The Magic of Being, which covers all sorts of shift when you transfigure from human doing into embodied soul being-ness, when human and I AM align.

Wow Lauren, thank you for sharing! Your post comes in a time where I found myself pondering if the possibility of sovereign relationships at a very personal/intimate level is actually real within the human experience. Everything you wrote resonates with me, so beautifully said! I had been feeling the tension of the tide shift for a while, and I've even considered the thought of 'shutting down to friendships' as, like you said it so perfectly, one can be led to actions that no longer feel natural in order to keep them. After reading your post I realized that what I've been doing is in fact, letting go of the friendship identity, even though the mind couldn't help it but jump to the conclusion that I was 'shutting down' - well, I knew no such a thing is 'possible' at this point of my realization, but history does have a way of presenting itself especially in times of big shifts :). So thank you so much for the clarity you share.
<3 <3

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Lauren

5/2/2018 10:39:34 am

It took me months and until just now writing this to realize I was integrating the 'friend' identity. So much suffering and confusion and then the freedom to let it go naturally. And it continues to perpetually unfold! Thank you for sharing your experience.

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Maureen

5/2/2018 12:13:12 pm

I resonate with how you describe integrating the friend identity Lauren. Over the years, since I moved back to Vancouver in 2003, I have really honed my friendships - a lot have left. Now, the ones who are left I connect with on a soul level. We have gone through a lot together, let go of 'have to's' or 'shoulds' in relationship. I have come to edge of having to 'let go' of each one of them and face what it would be like if they left my life. All my friends are dedicated to the unfolding of their inner truth. We have supported each other and enjoyed each other's company. Now when we come together it is for enjoyment - enjoying each other's company. With some of them, we don't connect often, but when we do it is a lovely experience. Another friend and I speak or get together once a week (for the most part - occasionally missing a week). We care about each other and enjoy sharing our lives and experiences. I find my experience with them is richer than a sharing with a neighbour or with others here. I am not talking a lot of friends here - a handful - but even as the friend identity integrates (and I can feel it integrating) they remain in my life and we share from the place experienced by us on the Centre of Being phone calls. We don't hang on to each other and I feel so much gratitude that they are in my life. We shall see how it continues to unfold but for now....

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Maureen

5/2/2018 12:30:59 pm

P.s. any support I have given to these dear friends over the years was given joyfully and not from a place of feeling I had to to keep the friendship.

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Author

Lauren Hutton (Sar'h) writes adventure novels and short stories about the self-realization experience and beyond.​She fancies herself a humanizing divinity journalist and shares her work joyously on this page.